The Demonologist: The Extraordinary Career of Ed and Lorraine Warren (16 page)

Because of the extraordinary nature of Ed and Lorraine Warren’s work, the strategy of the demonic often envelops them too. Indeed, it begins even before they are requested to enter an investigation, or follow up a call for help. Ed explains recent vandalism that occurred in his office:

“This happens a couple of times a year, usually after sunset. The last time, though, it happened in broad daylight. Lorraine and I were in the kitchen after lunch. First the phone rang. Lorraine picked up the receiver, but since there was no one on the line, she hung up. About a minute later, the phone rang again—but instead of the normal, intermittent rings, it rang continuously. When Lorraine picked up the receiver, a deep-throated, animal growl came across the line.

“She became upset and handed the phone to me, and I listened to the growling too. No sooner did we hang up than our German shepherd began barking savagely outside. At that point, what sounded like a violent brawl started up in my office. You could hear furniture being thrown around, with crashing and breaking sounds going on for a good ten minutes. Most people’s inclination would have been to run down and find out what’s happening, of course, except you
wouldn’t
want to have seen what was going on down there!

“An hour later, we went into the office. It was a complete wreck. Pictures were torn off the walls, files were dumped over. Books, papers, chairs, lamps, tables all were thrown into a pile in the center of the room. We know from experience this was not the work of human beings. This is the demonic.

“Understand, these entities are spiritual hoodlums. They’re always down there. You see them sometimes out of the corner of your eye, flitting from here to there. Other times, they’ll be loitering between the physical and non-physical state: semi-materialized, formless, like a charcoal-gray cloud. We’ve got an understanding,” Ed says ironically, but deadly serious. “They don’t bother me, and I don’t throw holy water on them.”

Then why was the office torn up?

“Right now,” Ed answers, “we don’t know why this buildup is taking place, but most likely more strange things will go on—hopefully nothing serious. This kind of thing routinely occurs a week or two before we’re called in to investigate a serious case where the demonic is involved. Right now, all we know is that somewhere, someone is being either oppressed or possessed by the demonic. The person or family under siege probably has no idea who Lorraine and I are, let alone how to get hold of us. But one way or another, they’ll call for help. The spirits, however, know his too. That’s part of the reason why the office was torn up: to try and intimidate us right now. As I say, there’s a method and a strategy to
all
these phenomena.”

The religious community has long been the target for demoniacal attack, with the pious being the very select target. Compare Ed Warren’s statements with this passage from the biography of Padre Pio:

Many times, entering his modest little cell, Pio found everything upside down, his cot, coverings, books, and ink splattered over the walls. These strange spirits appeared to him under the most diverse forms, often in the habit of monks. One evening he saw that his bed was surrounded by fearful monsters... they grasped him, shook him and threw him on the floor and against the walls as they had often done to the Curé of Ars....To no one, outside his confessor, did he say anything about these visitations.

One night he saw enter his cell a monk under the form and aspect of Padre Agostino, his old confessor. The feigned monk counseled him and exhorted him to give up his life of asceticism and privations, affirming that God could not approve of his way of living. Padre Pio, stupefied that Padre Agostino should speak in this manner, ordered him to cry out with him,
“Viva Gesu”[Long
Live Jesus].

The strange personage disappeared immediately, leaving in the room a strange odor of stinking sulphur.…
*

Obviously, demonology arose in the religious community as a necessary protection against this incredible unworldly influence. And though the matter is usually kept confidential today, all major religions have specialist clergy assigned to demonology and exorcism; not as a remnant from the past (Padre Pio died in 1968) but as a real contemporary necessity. For Catholics, demonology is a subject important enough to be taught to clergy at the Pontifical universities in Rome. “The religious community would rather not have to deal with the problem of demoniacal phenomena,” says Ed. “They only do so because they have to.”

As a discipline, demonology incorporates the study of philosophy, theology, psychology (both normal and abnormal), anthropology, chemistry, biology, physics, and metaphysics. Such a broad-based approach enables the clergyman-demonologist to determine, when other researchers cannot, whether unusual phenomena are ultimately supernatural in origin. Such judgments are serious; people’s lives often hang in the balance.

Besides knowledge, the demonologist or exorcist must possess an unshakeable inner strength and be totally in command in situations of wild, unrestrained pandemonium. “A person who walks into a full-blown demonic situation without self-control,” Ed notes, “would be haywire in five minutes. The phenomena come at you separately through all five senses; at the same time, it pounces on your personal psychology. If you even waver, you falter, and if you falter, you fall prey to a force that specializes in the innocent, the ignorant, and the fallen.

“What’s worse,’ Ed astonishingly adds, “these spirits know your whole life: past, present, and to some degree, the future. In fact, when I’m working with the possessed, the first thing the possessing entity usually says to me is, ‘Ed Warren, I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!’ ”

Although Ed is not a clergyman, he nevertheless performs much of the work of the clergy in this field. “Traveling, long-term investigations, data analysis, discernment of spirit forces, counseling, follow-ups—things the clergy have no time to do—this is my work, and more,” says Ed. “Being a demonologist is something you don’t broadcast, you understand, because the very word tends to stop people in their tracks. There’s also no sense in alarming people, especially if they really
are
caught up in a demonic situation and don’t know it.”

Anyone who’s ever witnessed the vile, ungodly phenomena brought about by malicious inhuman spirits knows that a demonologist risks his life every time he enters a home to confront the forces of darkness. Yet that job must be done. Otherwise, individuals who unwittingly fall into the trap of the demonic will suddenly find themselves helpless and alone in the presence of powers that are merciless merchants of terror and violence. And with that, the strategy of the demonic will have just begun.

As Mr. Zellner so aptly put it when first describing his problem to Ed Warren, “There’s an invisible being in my house with a deranged mind that’s causing havoc and trying to overwhelm me.” Though he didn’t know it at the time, Mr. Zellner not only identified the problem, but defined the demonic’s basic strategy in one fell swoop.

*
Father John Nicola,
Diabolical Possession and Exorcism.
Rockford, I11.: TAN, 1974.

*
Padre Pio: The Stigmatist,
by Rev. Charles Carty, TAN Books. 1953 edition
.

VII
Infestation:
The Process Begins

“Long before we become involved in a case, in fact, long before we’re even aware there
is
a case at all,” says Lorraine, “strange occurrences will begin to happen. My word for them is ‘little-big-things.’ The telephone will ring in an odd way, and when I answer it, there’ll be voices whispering in the distance, or animal growls, or bizarre sound effects coming across the line. Later on, when the case comes into the open, we’re liable to hear these same whisperings or sound effects at the haunting site.

“Beyond that, other disturbing things are likely to happen to us before a demonic case approaches. Around midnight, we’ll hear someone walking around in circles on the front porch, or pacing back and forth on the rear deck of the house. We’ll check, of course, but no one will be there, though the footsteps may continue to be audible. Other times, we’ll hear footsteps running up a stairway
inside
the house, trying to frighten us. Bright car lights will be seen pulling into the driveway, followed by the sound of footsteps, and then three knocks at the front door. But again, upon checking, there won’t be anybody at the door, and there’ll suddenly be no car in the driveway. Often, we’re liable to hear a ruckus out in Ed’s office, although the office door is locked and the sonic alarms haven’t been tripped. We may be sitting quietly at home when a rush of freezing cold wind sweeps through the house, or there will be the rustle of clothes sounding like someone has just walked by. A black cat may saunter into the living room, sit down, and vanish—symbolizing demonic involvement.

“Two nights ago, Ed was called out of town on official business to the Midwest, and I felt terribly apprehensive about his safety. At
exactly
three o’clock in the morning, there was a tremendous, incredible crash, complete with breaking windows and the tinkle of glass. It actually sounded as though the roof had caved in! I got up and walked around the house using a flashlight—because light stuns the demonic—but there was nothing to be seen. Although nothing physical had happened, the thunderous crash still scared me to jitters. You just don’t get accustomed to this kind of thing! Instead, Ed and I have come to understand that such negative ‘set-ups,’ as we call them, are part of a larger, more comprehensive demonic strategy that’s already in effect before we are ever called in. It’s only in retrospect, once the case is over, that these disturbing incidents tie in. What we do know beforehand, though, is that some person or family is being closed in by a spirit that wants no interference and will do almost anything to prevent detection.”

As the time nears for the Warrens to become involved in a particular case, obstructions and interference in their lives become more and more overt. If someone desperate for assistance sends a letter, it is apt to be delivered to the wrong address. If someone tries to telephone, the instrument will not ring, although Ed and Lorraine are home and available. Messages spoken into their answering machine are strangely
not
recorded or distorted by overriding static. Once the message does get through, and the Warrens leave for the site, anything can be expected to happen to them on the way, including head-on collisions with phantom cars. And as Lorraine notes: “When viewed in isolation, none of these obstructions make any sense at the time; they amount to being no more than curious coincidences. Again, only after the fact, when viewed in totality, do the delays and obstructions tie in with a larger strategy.”

Strategy,
the dictionary tells us, means to outwit—by trick or artifice—in order to gain an advantage. The demonic spirit has classically proven to be a master strategist against man. Here one minute, gone the next, the complicated manipulations of these notorious spirits have long remained a mystery. In the past, facts about the
modus operandi
of the spirit were few and far between. Lacking books and detection instruments, monks and clerics could only keep longhand accounts of diabolical disturbances for possible use by future historians.

Now, however, after centuries of study and investigation, a pattern of demonic behavior has finally begun to emerge. As a result, the twentieth century demonologist—aided by books, technology, and mass communication—has the most thorough grasp so far on these elusive entities’ overt motives and strategy.

“There are three distinct stages to demoniacal activity,” Ed reveals,
“infestation, oppression,
and
possession
. In certain rare cases, death may occur as a fourth stage, or in lieu of possession. If no one is called in to stop the spirit, and the disturbance is allowed to run its course, then each stage can be anticipated to occur in 1-2-3 order.

“During the infestation stage, the strategy is to create fear—thus generating negative psychic energy—that starts breaking down the human will. The Foster children experienced the primary, infestation stage of the phenomenon, as did Mr. Zellner. The case with the rag doll, Annabelle, would also have to be categorized as infestation. Though these cases needn’t have happened, they do illustrate that demoniacal phenomena won’t tend to occur unless an individual grants some sort of ‘permission’ for a spirit to enter his life.
Doors must be opened for the phenomenon to occur,
” Ed states emphatically.

In everyday terms, therefore, the demonic spirit does not have free reign over man. Instead, through the exercise of free will, men or women
choose
to open the door to the unknown, and then follow the darkened path. As Ed explains, “The demonic is a spirit that people
don’t
have to know. Specifically, it’s a matter of need versus want. A ghost
needs
to communicate its own problem, or it visits as an apparition to give information that a living person may need to know. The demonic spirit is different: it’s there because people, through their own free will,
want
or invite spirit contact when there’s no need for it. With respect to this, two laws apply: the Law of Attraction and the Law of Invitation.

“The premise of the Law of Attraction,” Ed now explains, “is
like attracts like
. Attention to the positive brings about the positive; attention to the negative brings about the negative. Therefore, people who do negative or patently unnatural things are essentially ‘doing the Devil’s work for him’ and actually
attract
negative spirits to their side. They’re on the same frequency, so to speak. The Annabelle case is a good example. Those girls had an innocent, though unnatural attachment to the doll; this lack of good judgment got noticed by the demonic. Once it was there, it went to work and oppressed them to consult a medium, then believe the bogus message. In short, the girls gave ‘Annabelle’
carte blanche
to come into their lives. Had the case gone on, the young man, Lou, would have stood in real danger of being seriously hurt, if not killed; and the girls might likely have come under possession by the entity.”